Mark Ogden is the Telegraph's Northern Football Correspondent.

Manchester City: Strangers in their own land?

So this is how it feels to be Manchester City in the land of Sheikh Mansour.

The opulent base at the seven-star Emirates Palace Hotel, a purpose-built training camp in the shadow of the neon-lit, glass-fronted skyscrapers, the sell-out crowd anticipating Thursday’s friendly against the United Arab Emirates national team.

While Manchester shivers in the November cold snap, first-team stars such as Robinho, Craig Bellamy and Stephen Ireland are able to relax by the pool in 30 degree heat before training on a lush pitch under floodlights in the evening.

But one thing is missing here in Abu Dhabi – football fever.

When Manchester United visited the Far East during pre-season, supporters massed at airports to greet them in Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Hangzhou.

In January 2008, Sir Alex Ferguson’s players were escorted from the airport to their hotel in Riyadh by fans leaning out of car windows during a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Nothing unusual about that? Well, it was 2am when the team touched down in the Saudi capital.

When Liverpool played in Thailand in the summer, Rafael Benitez’s players were met by similar scenes.

But Abu Dhabi appears more reserved. There was no welcoming party at the airport, no scrum of television cameras.

City’s training session on Tuesday was an almost intimate affair, watched only by a handful of the 400 supporters who have flown out from England for Thursday’s friendly game.

In Seoul, Ji-sung Park peers down from every other advertising billboard, but there are no City players being milked by the publicity machine in Abu Dhabi.

That might change as City develop and grow into the major player that Sheikh Mansour’s money will undoubtedly ensure they become.

But the X-Factor is still missing and, while money can buy many things, only success on the pitch will sprinkle the stardust that they possess in bucketloads at Anfield and Old Trafford.

That’s the next step, however, and a brief glimpse of Abu Dhabi suggests that they know how to make things work and work well.

Until City add the ‘franchise player’ they are so determined to sign, though, there is a sense that will continue to lack the box office appeal of their more established rivals.